This book is subtitled: “an appreciation of Oswald Bruce Cooper,
with characteristic examples of his art in lettering, type designing
& such of his writings as reveal the Cooperian typographic gospel.”
Oswald Cooper was an internationally known designer of commercial
display and advertising typefaces. Born in Ohio, he moved with his
family to Coffeyville, Kansas, where he became an apprentice in
a printing shop, a “printer’s devil,” at the age of 16. At the age
of 21, he moved to Chicago as a student of Frederic W. Goudy, recognized
as one America’s greatest type designers. He later was a partner
in his own design firm, Bertsch & Cooper, Inc., Typographers.

The Book of Oz Cooper is set in his own Cooper Oldstyle typeface.
The design and incidental calligraphy are by Raymond DaBoll. The colophon
states the appropriateness of using Cooper’s own design, “an advertising
type designed by an advertising typographer & letterer who never
pretended to be anything else.”

The Skaggs
Collection also includes this 1950 calendar, originally designed by
Cooper in 1931 and brought up-to-date by Raymond F. DaBoll. It has
been hailed as the most remarkable of the series of calendars designed
by Cooper, and the style of lettering, as well as the numerals, is
different for each month. The lettering for July is said to be “wilting.”

The Skaggs
Collection also boasts this original artwork, identified by Skaggs
as “Original Oswald Cooper lettering from Chicago Daily News. Designer
of Cooper types."